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  Suronjon was absorbed in staring at the sunlight in the veranda. Suddenly, he was brought to life by sounds of a procession going by. As the procession neared, Suronjon tried to hear what they were saying. Sudhamoy and Kironmoyee too listened carefully. Suronjon saw his mother pull the windows shut. However, as the procession came close to their house, they could hear the slogans clearly.

  Pick up Hindus

  One or two

  And snack on them

  Won’t you?

  Suronjon saw Sudhamoy tremble. Kironmoyee stood still with her back to the closed windows. Suronjon remembered that they had heard the same slogan in 1990. If they found Suronjon somewhere close by just now, they would gobble him up. And who were they? They were youngsters of the neighbourhood! They were people like Jobbaar, Romjan, Alamgir, Kobir and Abedin. They were his friends, almost like younger brothers, people he talked with every morning and afternoon. They discussed problems affecting their neighbourhood; very often they worked together to solve problems. And on this lovely winter morning of 7 December, they were going to snack on Suronjon!

  Four

  After reaching Dhaka, Sudhamoy rented a house in Tanti Bazar. His cousin Asit Ronjon lived there. It was he who helped Sudhamoy find a small house.

  ‘Sudhamoy, you are the son of a wealthy father. Can you possibly stay in a rented house?’

  ‘Why not? Aren’t other people doing it?’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ said Asit Ronjon, ‘but you’ve never ever known want. Why did you sell your own home? Maya is a tiny thing. It’s not like she’s a young woman. Surely nothing terrible would’ve happened. Of course, we’ve sent our Utpol to Calcutta. He was not able to go to college. The young men of the neighbourhood used to say that they would grab hold of him. I was frightened and I sent him away. He’s now with his mother’s brother in Tiljala. A grown-up daughter brings great anxiety, Dada.’

  Sudhamoy could not disregard what Asit Ronjon said. Of course, there was anxiety. He wanted to believe that even Muslims experience anxiety when they have grown-up daughters. A group of young men had pushed one of Sudhamoy’s students on the road and pulled her sari off. The young woman was not Hindu—in fact, she was Muslim. The young men were also Muslim. So what did that mean? Sudhamoy consoled himself with the thought that it was not about Hindus and Muslims but about the strong torturing the weak whenever possible. Women are weak and so strong men torment them. Asit Ronjon had sent both his daughters to Calcutta. He earned good money from his gold shop in Islampur. He also owned an old two-storey house which he had not even bothered to repair. He was planning to build a new house but did not seem very interested in the matter.

  ‘Don’t spend any money, Dada,’ he told Sudhamoy. ‘Save. If you can, send away the money you got from the sale of your house. My relatives there will organize some land for you.’

  ‘There?’ asked Sudhamoy.

  ‘Yes, Calcutta,’ said Asit Ronjon in a stage whisper. ‘I’ve bought land there too.’

  ‘You’re going to make money here,’ shouted Sudhamoy, ‘and spend it in another country. You’re a traitor!’

  Asit Ronjon was always surprised when Sudhamoy said these things. He thought that it was unusual to hear a Hindu have such views. In fact, all Hindus felt that they should not spend too much money here but save as much as possible. After all, one could not predict what turn life would take. They could be all rooted here and then suddenly people could decide to uproot them. It wouldn’t be entirely unexpected, would it?

  Sudhamoy often wondered why he had come away from Mymensingh. Why had his ties to his home not kept him back? Yes, there had been trouble because of Maya. People could have problems, surely? Both the communities—Hindus and Muslims—could be troubled by abductions. Sudhamoy asked himself whether he had felt insecure in his own home. In his bed, in the cramped rooms and veranda of the house in Tanti Bazar, Sudhamoy wondered why had he left his family home to live in an unfamiliar place. Was he in hiding? Why was it that he felt like a refugee in his own home and land? Had he suspected that he might lose the case against Shaukat sahib and his forged documents? Imagine losing a case to prove the ownership of your own home! Was it not better to leave with one’s reputation still intact? Sudhamoy had seen one of his older cousins lose his house in the Akur Takur locality of Tangail. A land-clerk neighbour wanted to grab a considerable amount of Sudhamoy’s cousin’s land. The case was in the court and after a five-year delay the court took the clerk’s side. Tarapodo Ghoshal finally snapped his ties with his own country and went to India. Had Sudhamoy too wondered whether Shaukat sahib’s case would take the path that Tarapodo’s had, and therefore sold off the home of his father and grandfather? Perhaps that was it. However, it was also a fact that Sudhamoy had lost much of his earlier social standing. The number of his friends and acquaintances had dwindled. Hindu families were leaving at the slightest chance. Many people had died. Every few days, Sudhamoy would be part of a funeral procession, with a bier of a friend, relative or acquaintance on his shoulders, chanting ‘Hori bol bolo hori’. The people who were still alive lived in utter despair. They felt that there was no value to their lives. Whenever he spoke with them, Sudhamoy found that he was scared too—it was as if a giant would come very soon, in the dead of the night, and crush them all. Everyone talked of their dream country—India—and conspired to cross the border.

  ‘When war broke out in the country,’ Sudhamoy would often say while talking to them, ‘you fled to India like emasculated men. Once the country was liberated you came back like heroes. And now, whenever there is a spot of trouble, you say you’ll go away to India. A cowardly bunch, that’s what you are.’

  Gradually, Jotin Debnath, Tushar Kar, Khogesh Kiran—all of them—distanced themselves from Sudhamoy. They were not open to speaking about their thoughts. Sudhamoy was very lonely in his own city. It was becoming fairly apparent that there was a growing distance also with his friends such as Shakur, Faisal, Majid and Gaffar. When he visited them, he was often greeted with comments like:

  ‘Do sit for a bit in the drawing room, Sudhamoy, and I’ll come back after namaz.’

  ‘Oh, you’re here today! But we have a milad at home!’

  The left-wingers were ageing and taking to religion and that made Sudhamoy feel very lonely. He felt anguished by the lack of reason, logic and ethics in his own city and so he wished to escape, not from his country but from the city of his dreams. He did not want all his dreams swallowed up in the shark-like jaws of a brooding, blue death.

  In the early days, Suronjon would shout and scream in anger because they had had to leave their home to live in a pigeonhole. Finally, he got used to it. He joined the university, made new friends, and began to like many things in Dhaka. He was drawn into the city’s political life as well. Suronjon was sought after at meetings and demonstrations. Kironmoyee had objected to moving, and she continued to object. At night she wept as she wondered whether the frame that she had made for the beans to climb was still there. She often said that no one had guavas as large as theirs and wondered how the coconut palms were and if the new owners remembered to put saltwater at the roots. Not just Kironmoyee but Sudhamoy too felt great pain.

  Sudhamoy had hoped that his transfer to Dhaka would help him follow up on what was happening about his promotion. He visited the ministry and often had to wait in the room of a lowly clerk.

  ‘Do you think something will happen with the file, dear man?’ he would ask.

  It was difficult to get a clear answer to such a question.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ they would say and Sudhamoy would have to leave, without a proper answer.

  ‘Doctor,’ someone would say, ‘can you please prescribe something for my daughter’s dysentery?’

  ‘I’ve had an ache in the left side of my chest for a few days—can you give me something good for it?’

  In such situations, Sudhamoy would unlock his briefcas
e, and write a prescription in a neat script on the prescription pad that carried his name and address.

  ‘Will my work get done, Forid sahib?’ he would ask.

  ‘Do we have any say in such matters?’ Forid sahib would answer, grinning broadly.

  Sudhamoy’s juniors got their promotions. His file had been buried under the files of Dr Korimuddin and Dr Yakub Mollah, but they soon began working as associate professors. Sudhamoy kept walking to and from the ministry.

  ‘Not today, come tomorrow, please. Your file will go to the secretary . . . Not tomorrow, come the day after, please. We have a meeting today . . . The minister is out of the country. Please come back after a month.’

  After listening to these kinds of excuses several times, Sudhamoy finally figured out that he was not going to get his promotion. After running around for nearly two years, it became evident to him that some of his colleagues, even though they weren’t competent, had outstripped him. His juniors had become associate professors and were lording it over him. He was nearing retirement and was actually entitled to be an associate professor. It’s not as though he was greedy, it was his by right. Finally, Sudhamoy Datta retired as an assistant professor.

  His colleague Madhob Chondro Pal whispered in his ear as he placed a garland of marigolds around Sudhamoy’s neck, as they bade him farewell, ‘In a country of Muslims, we should not expect too many opportunities for ourselves. Even what we’re getting now is a favour.’

  And then he laughed loudly! Madhob too was working as an assistant professor. His name too had come up for promotion a few times and though many others got through, Madhob always faced obstacles. And then Madhob Chondro had other things going against him. He had been to the Soviet Union! Later, Sudhamoy realized that Madhob Chondro wasn’t far off the mark. There was nothing in the laws of Bangladesh that prevented Hindus from being appointed or promoted to senior positions in the administration, police or army. However, there were no secretaries or additional secretaries in any ministry from the Hindu community. There were three joint secretaries and a handful of deputy secretaries. Sudhamoy believed that those few joint secretaries and deputy secretaries certainly could not hope to go up the ladder. There were merely six Hindu deputy commissioners (DCs) in the entire country. There was just a single Hindu judge in the High Court. There were probably several Hindus in the lower rungs of the police but how many Hindus were there at the superintendent level? Sudhamoy thought to himself that he had not become an associate professor simply because his name was Sudhamoy Datta. If only he had been Muhammad Ali or Salimullah Chowdhury! Even in trade and business, very rarely did a Hindu institution get a licence if there was no Muslim partner involved. And then Hindus never got loans from government-controlled banks or from industrial development organizations to set up businesses.

  It was in Tanti Bazar that Sudhamoy Datta again created an appropriate atmosphere where he could continue living. He still felt a strong attachment to his land, even after leaving the city of his birth. ‘Is it only Mymensingh that is my land? All of Bangladesh is my country,’ he always said.

  ‘We released fish into the ponds, grew vegetables and our children ate the fruit from our trees—that life seems like a dream,’ Kironmoyee sighed. ‘Nowadays, we’re barely able to pay our rent every month.’

  ‘You did get quite a bit of money after selling the house and on your retirement,’ Kironmoyee often said, as the night deepened. ‘Let’s go away to Calcutta. We do have a fair number of relatives there.’

  ‘It’s not like our relatives will even give us a meal,’ Sudhamoy would respond. ‘You may look forward to staying with them but they are likely to turn their faces away when they see you. They’ll probably ask where you’re staying and offer you some tea and nibbles.’

  ‘Why should we depend on others when we have our own money?’

  ‘I won’t go. If all of you want to go, do go. I have left my family home but does that mean that I’ll now leave my country?’ Sudhamoy would shout back.

  They went from Tanti Bazar to Armanitola and were there for six years. Sudhamoy Datta had now been living in Tikatuli for seven years. In the meanwhile, he had developed heart disease. He was supposed to hold a clinic in a pharmacy in Gopibag every afternoon but he did not go there regularly. He had patients coming home. There was a table set up in his drawing room for him to attend to patients. There was a bed too, on one side. And on another side there was a cane sofa. He also had a bookshelf laden with books. Books on medicine, literature, society and politics stood side by side. Sudhamoy spent most of his time in that room. On most evenings, Nishith babu came, announcing his arrival by the flip-flop of his sandals on the floor. They would be joined by Akhtarujjaman, Shahidul Islam and Horipodo. They passed time discussing the politics of their country. Kironmoyee would bring them tea. She would usually make tea without sugar because most of them were elderly. Sudhamoy too was getting on in years.

  Sudhamoy sat up suddenly as he heard the sounds of the procession. Suronjon clenched his jaws and Kironmoyee’s soft, dovelike bosom fluttered rapidly. They were frightened and angry. Was Sudhamoy not the least bit anxious? Should he not be angry too?

  Part Two

  One

  Suronjon’s friends were largely Muslim. Of course, it was not right to say that they were Muslim. They did not really set much store by religion. And even if they did, they had not hesitated to get close to Suronjon. It was only last year that Kemal had taken everyone in Suronjon’s family to stay in his house. Pulok, Kajol, Ashim and Joydeb were Suronjon’s friends but he was closer to Kemal, Hyder, Belal and Robiul. Whenever Suronjon had met with any trouble, it had been Hyder, Kemal and Belal who had been by his side rather than Kajol or Ashim. Once, they had to take Sudhamoy to Suhrawardy hospital at half past one in the morning.

  ‘It’s a heart attack; take him to the hospital immediately,’ said Horipodo, the doctor, who was also a friend of the family. Suronjon got in touch with Kajol.

  ‘How can you take him now, in the middle of the night?’ said Kajol, yawning. ‘Let it get light and then we can make some arrangements.’

  However, when Belal heard about it, he arrived promptly with his car and ran around completing all the admission formalities.

  ‘Kaka babu, please don’t worry,’ he reassured Sudhamoy. ‘Please think of me as your son.’

  Suronjon was gratified. And all the while that Sudhamoy was in hospital, Belal stayed in touch, requested the doctors he knew to take care of Sudhamoy, visited whenever he had time and let Suronjon have use of his car to make trips to the hospital. How many people would go to these lengths to help a friend? Kajol was comfortably off too but did he go out of his way for Suronjon? In fact, it was Robiul who provided the money for most of the treatment. He arrived at their doorstep and asked, ‘Your father’s in the hospital, isn’t he?’ Placing an envelope on the table, he said, ‘Don’t think that this doesn’t concern your friends,’ even before Suronjon could answer his first question. And he left as abruptly as he had come. Suronjon opened the envelope and found that there were 5000 takas inside.

  The friendship did not exist only because they helped him. It was a fact that Suronjon had always felt a greater emotional and intellectual affinity with Robiul, Kemal and Hyder. He had not felt that closeness with Ashim, Kajol or Joydeb. And it was not just that—Suronjon did not think that he could ever love an Archana, a Deepti, a Gita or a Sunonda as intensely as he had loved Parveen.

  Suronjon had never learnt to differentiate people on the basis of religious identity. As a child, he did not even know that he was Hindu. When he was in Class III or IV, in the Mymensingh District School, he was once caught in an argument with a boy named Khaled about something they had learnt in class. As the argument reached a crescendo, Khaled called him names like ‘son of a pig’ and ‘bastard’. Suronjon too gave it back in kind.

  Khaled: ‘Offspring of a dog!’

  S
uronjon: ‘You are the son of a dog.’

  Khaled: ‘Hindu!’

  Suronjon: ‘You’re a Hindu!’

  Suronjon thought that ‘Hindu’ too was a swear word. For quite a few years, he had thought that Hindu was a pejorative, mocking term. It was only as he grew up a bit that he understood that there was a community of people called Hindus and he belonged to that community. After some time, he began to believe that he belonged to the human race and a community called Bengali. The Bengali community had not been created by any religion. He wanted to believe that it was non-communal and inclusive. He believed that the term ‘Bengali’ signified non-divisiveness. He also believed that Bengalis wrongly thought that foreigners who were of the same religion were their own people, and that Bengalis of a different religious community were the Other, and this consequently created mistrust amongst Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims.

  And now, it was 8 December and there was a general strike across the whole country. The Ghaatok-Dalal Nirmul Committee (the Committee for Eradicating the Killers and Collaborators of ’71) had called for this strike. And then, the Jamaat-e-Islami had declared a strike to protest the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

  Suronjon got up from bed, stretched, and thought that he might as well go out and see what was happening during the general strike. It had been two days since he had set eyes on his beloved city. Kironmoyee was clearly petrified, but Suronjon couldn’t figure out if Sudhamoy felt any anxiety. He had told everyone at home that he wasn’t going anywhere to hide. If that meant death, then so be it. If some Muslims came and chopped everyone in their house to bits, well, that was it then, but Suronjon wasn’t going to leave. Maya had left of her own accord. She had a fierce desire to stay alive and had decided to take refuge in the house of a Muslim. She wanted to shelter under the shade of a Parul here, and a Rifat there, and save her life. Poor thing.